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Gmail is one of the best email systems , far superior in features and maintenance than an exchange server or other mail provider.

You can set up a free gmail account, or you can use it for your business and have a personalised email account such as [email protected] – For more information on this, please visit Phaser Computers

Here is some of the best tips i can reccomend you from my experiences from using Gmail in the past 7 years.

1. Consolidate Your Email Accounts

One of the best things about Gmail is that it can be your only login for all your email! You can import all your other email accounts, and send from multiple email addresses from the one system.

Goto Settings. Then select the Accounts & Import Tool, and follow the instructions.

2. Use the Search

I can not plug this enough. Gmail has instant search. This has some great advantages. Treat your gmail inbox as a todo list. If an email is information, and does not need attending to, ARCHIVE it. If it needs a reply or research before you reply, keep it there, when you reply and it is “finished”, archive it.

When you need some of those “information” emails that you archived, simply search by subject, sender or keywords… its so fast! Its all you need.

3. Gets Your labels & Filters Cranking.

Just like outlook, Gmail has folders, and auto filtering. Folders can be also good for colouring different mail for todo lists or organisation. Labels = Folders. Filters = Mail Rules

Some examples of how you would use labels and filters:EG1. You want to get facebook emails, because some people just delete those comments and you never see them again, but you dont want it cluttering your inbox. Set a Filter to tag all emails to a folder called facebook, but archive it (skip the inbox) – Then when you want to check, just click the folder.EG2. You run multiple business’s from the one gmail system. Set a filter to make all incoming email [email protected] to be labelled Business 1, and one for [email protected] Then set 2 different colours for the labels. Now you can distinguish between emails from different business’sEG3. Your a freelance Designer. You can label different emails as different jobs and keep track of where your up to.

4. Turn on Gmail labs.

Not many people know about Gmail labs. But there’s heaps of extra features in there!

Goto Settings.

Click the Labs Tab.

Go through the list, and click enable to the labs you want and then save settings. (Gmail will restart)

The top 5 Gmail labs in my opinion –

1. Background Send – Gmail send your mail while you move on to more important things. Just be sure to stay logged in until it’s all sent!
2. Send & Archive – Adds a button to the compose form that lets you send a reply message and archive the email conversation in a single action.
3. Undo Send – Oops, hit “Send” too soon? Stop messages from being sent for a few seconds after hitting the send button.
4. Right-side chat – Move the chat box to the right side of the inbox so you can actually see your contact list better!
5. Message Sneak Peek – Sneak into a conversation without opening it by right-clicking on a message in your inbox.

5. Get a Theme

Plain old gmail is fine, but spice it up a little with a background! Goto settings, then themes, and select one.